Grant Manship

Katkin Reviews Mirrors, Home and Garden & Rainy Day Saints

Mirrors / Home and Garden / Rainy Day Saints

Saturday July 19, 2008 Beachland Tavern (Cleveland, OH)

2008 has been an incredible summer for seminal indie-punk reunion gigs.  I have been thrilled and blessed this summer to have caught outstanding (and improbable) performances by The Feelies, Mission of Burma, Half Japanese, Versus, and Great Plains (though I sadly missed gigs by The Vaselines and Wire that I really would like to have caught).  But perhaps the most improbable—as well as the most unheralded—of the summer's many amazing reunion gigs took place on a pleasant July Saturday night at the homey and unpretentious Beachland Tavern in the Collinwood neighborhood on Cleveland's far east side.  There, the nearly-original five-piece lineup of Mirrors (not "the Mirrors") featuring original members Jamie Klimek, Paul Marotta, Jim Crook, and Craig Bell (plus Styrenes drummer Paul Laurence, replacing the absent Michael Weldon) played together for the first time since September 1975.  (A stripped-down trio version of Mirrors played some gigs in NYC and Cleveland—and released an album—in the late 1980s and early 1990s).

Mirrors were perhaps the most Velvets-inspired band of the Cleveland punk explosion of the mid-1970s, and in many ways were not as avant-garde or experimental as contemporaries such as Pere Ubu, the Styrenes, or the Electric Eels (with all of whom Mirrors shared band members).  Led by singer/songwriter/lead guitarist Jamie Klimek, Mirrors infused Velvets-style song-structure with heavy dollops of stunning protopunk gtr-heroism and heart-on-the-sleeve sincerity.  (The Velvets themselves played Cleveland fourteen times between 1968 and 1971, and the young Jamie Klimek is credited with having recorded some legendary bootlegs of a few of those gigs).

About Klimek's speedy and feedback-laden but subtle playing, Pagans singer Mike Hudson recently had this to say:  "Cleveland had been blessed during the late '70s by the presence of four world-class guitar players—Mike Metoff, Cheetah Chrome, Jim Jones, and Jamie Klimek.  I had the chance to play with them all and there was very little any of them couldn't do.  Each had his own style and his own great strengths, but Jamie was far and away the most complex and musically trained of the bunch."  Mike Hudson, Diary of a Punk 108-09 (2008).   More contemporary Velvets-influenced feedback-wielders such as Ira Kaplan and Alan Licht owe great debts of gratitude to Jamie Klimek.

Katkin's Haiku Reviews of Xiu Xiu, Why? & Thao Nguyen

Here are 3 great haikus from Ken Katkin in response to the March 29th show at the Southgate House.

Why? ruled at Southgate
Like The Fall playing trip-hop,
Laconic and cool.
Xiu Xiu's shtick was stale,
Culture Club or Antony
in no-wave disguise.
A phone call at ten
Caused me to miss Thao Nguyen
which was my damn loss!

Katkin Reflects On Vampire Weekend's Visit To Cincinnati

We've been blessed with a flurry of activity from the good professor Ken Katkin as of late.  In what caps a trifecta of recent additions to Katkin's Korner, here is his review of last month's Vampire Weekend show at the Gypsy Hut:

As of January 25, 2008, I'd never heard of Vampire Weekend. But when I took a quick January 26 foray into NYC, it seemed as though all of Gotham was buzzing about Vampire Weekend's allegedly fresh and infectious hybrid between African music and The Feelies (or maybe the Talking Heads). In Brooklyn, I was shown a youtube video for the band's signature tune "A Punk," which struck me as borderline enough that the band might potentially be either good or awful. One clever pal did express a prescient note of skepticism, warning me that Vampire Weekend at their best sounded like Paul Simon's Graceland and at their worst sounded like every generic English ska band from the 1980s.

When I returned to Cincy the next day, I stopped by Shake It Records to pick up the new Bonnie Prince Billy live CD Wilding In The West. While there, the shopkeeper told me that he had just received 200 tix for Vampire Weekend's semi-secret Cincy gig, which would take place on Wed Feb 13 in the Gypsy Hut, the smallest venue of the band's hyped and sold-out national tour. Having just spending a whole NYC weekend hearing people gush about this band of recent Columbia grads, it seemed like my inescapable karma to buy a pair of tix to go see them.

John Cale Has A Secret

During a discussion with Professor Katkin about the 2008 WFMU setlist and the two Velvet Underground tracks included in the set, I mentioned I've been on a big Velvet Underground kick lately.  In response to this, Ken sent over this little gem of John Cale on the September 16, 1963 episode of I've Got a Secret.  His secret centered around his participation in an 18 hour 40 minute piano performance, the first full length presentation of Erik Satie's "Vexations".  As the YouTube poster who uploaded the video mentions, the other pianists who participated in the performance were John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, John Cale, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein (the New York Times reviewer), Joshua Rifkin, and two reserves.  The group played the piece, which is only three lines long, the required 840 times on September 9, 1963, from 6 p.m. to 12:40 p.m. the following day.  Seated also on the I've Got a Secret stage was Off Broadway actor, Karl Schenzer, who's secret was that he was the only person to stay for the entire piano concert.

Ken Katkin Reviews Wussy & The Championship - Mar. 6th, 2008

On a pleasant winter night in Northern Kentucky, I attended one of the four Cincinnati-area gigs being performed within six weeks by the Queen City's finest band, Wussy, the mixed-gender quartet (part-Velvets, part-Vaselines, part-Neil Young, part-Love Child, part-Dead Moon) that is the current project featuring ex-Ass Pony (and local luminary) Chuck Cleaver.  This flurry of local activity was designed to allow the local heroes to test out some new material, and also to prepare them for their forthcoming road trip to SXSW in Texas, to be immediately followed by their second-ever spate of east coast tour dates.

This gig took place at a new venue, The Keystone Bar & Grill in Covington, Kentucky.  I'd never been there before (at least since the excellent Sonoma restaurant, which used to inhabit the same space, closed down a while back).  And frankly, I was a little alarmed when Wussy bassist Mark Messerly noted in the band's blog that the Keystone's myspace site portrays the club as "a nice place with lots of young energetic people acting energetically."  Which I guess was a euphemistic way of saying that the club portrays itself as a haunt for overaged fratboys and feather-haired ex-sorority girls on the make, and also for the handful of "upscale" (the Keystone's word, not mine) yuppies who toil in Northern Kentucky's nearby three-block corporate office-tower district.

It turns out that Wussy organized this gig as a favor to a slightly gay dad-rock band from Milwaukee called "The Championship" who had apparently begged for help in scoring a last-minute Cincy-area gig. Although "The Championship" had their moments, my advice to them would be to come out of the closet, lean heavier on their underutilized Bowie influence, lighten up on their overdone Uncle Tupelo influence, and play fewer songs.

2008 Setlist for Yo La Tengo's WFMU All-Request Webcast

With his latest addition to our very own Katkin's Korner feature, Professor Ken Katkin, has once again compiled the setlist for Yo La Tengo's annual all-request set on WFMU this past weekend.  To recap, during the annual event listener's who make a pledge of at least $100 can request that the band cover a song of the listener's choosing, Yo La Tengo style. They do their best to come up with an arrangement of their own on the spot. 

This is what Ken had to say about this year's set, "This was a hard year IMHO, with more than the usual number of obscurities to identify.  But here is my best stab at keeping a setlist.  Thanks to metafilter poster Kowalski for identifying the Sonics song in the second set and the Hypnolovewheel song in the fourth set.  Thanks to WFMU Beware of the Blog poster jumba for identifying the Fleshtones song in the second set.  Thanks especially to Ira Kaplan for taking mercy upon me and filling in the remaining blanks.   Any further help in correcting any remaining errors would be welcome.  Also, if anyone has scored a recording of this show, a copy would also be more than welcome!"

Without further ado, you can take a look at the Professor Katkin's note and results after the jump and as previously mentioned, if anyone out there snagged a copy of the webcast, please let us know!

Ken Katkin's Best of 2007

I'm going to give Ken Katkin with his annual, and always crowd-pleasing, "Best of" list the final word on 2007.  Without further ado, here's Ken's list of the best records of 2007.

Top 12 New Albums of 2007 (in order)

1. Various Artists - Bold Beginnings: Louisville Punk 1978-83 comp CD (Noise Pollution)
2. Wussy – Left For Dead CD (Shake It)
3. Home Blitz – s/t CD (Gulcher)
4. Times New Viking - Present The Paisley Reich LP/CD (Siltbreeze)
5. Boris w/ Michio Kurihara – Rainbow CD (Pedal/Drag City)
6. Glenn Mercer - Wheels In Motion CD (Pravda)
7. Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster - The Art of the Slap 3CD (Stereolaffs)
8. Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound LP/CD/WAV (Touch & Go)
9. Rhys Chatham - A Crimson Grail (For 400 Electric Guitars) CD (Table Of The Elements)
10. Alasdair Roberts – The Amber Gatherers LP/CD (Drag City)
11. Grinderman - s/t CD (Anti)
12. Fems – Live at the Continental, Buffalo NY CD (no label)

Top 10 Singles/EPs of 2007 (In Order)

1. Wire - Read & Burn 03 CDEP (Pink Flag)
2. Pierced Arrows -  "In My Brain" b/w "Caroline" 7"45 (Tombstone)
3. Times New Viking - "(my head)" + 3 7"EP (Matador)
4. Jad Fair & Daisy Cooper – "South Pole"/"Sunday Morning"/"Blue Moon" 7"45 (People In A Position To Know)
5. Lou Barlow - Mirror the Eye CDEP (Acuarela)
6. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - "Strange Form of Life" 12"EP/ CDEP (Drag City)
7. No Age - "Sick People Are Safe" (Deleted Art) (Sweden)
8. Wooden Shjips  - "Loose Lips" b/w "Start to Dreaming" 7"45 (Sub Pop)
9. Wooden Wand – "Run Run Run" b/w Clay Ruby - "The Black Angel's Death Song" Split-10"EP (People In A Position To Know)
10. Joanna Newsom - & the Ys Street Band 12"EP/ CDEP (Drag City)

Ken Katkin Reviews Boris, et al.

Boris + Damon & Naomi w/ Michio Kurihara

Fri Oct 5 on the Mershon Stage at the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH)

On a perfect October evening that felt like spring, I sojourned 100 miles up I-71 to commune with Tokyo's polymath power-trio Boris. How could I pass up the opportunity?  The band's voyage from Japan to Columbus, Ohio was 100 times the distance that I traveled.  And although Boris has been together since 1992 and has played America's coastal cities fairly frequently, this was my first-ever opportunity to see the band play live.

The name "Boris" is said to derive from the title of a song by The Melvins, though I think it's at least as likely that the name was selected strategically to ensure that the band's records would be filed in US record stores right next to those of their philosophically compatible countrymen, The Boredoms.  The New York Times once referred to Boris as possibly "the Kraftwerk, or the Ramones, or even the Jimi Hendrix Experience, depending on the album" of contemporary experimental metal music.  I mostly concur with the Gray Lady's description, except that even the phrase "experimental metal" fails to capture the range of musical styles and genres in which Boris works comfortably.  Pop and experimental, heavy and light, NYC-postpunk and arena-rock bombast, psychedelic and slowcore and speedmetal:  Boris's stylistic catholicism has actually forced the band to develop a semiotic typographical scheme that tips would-be record-buyers what they're getting themselves into.  (CD booklets upon which the band-name "BORIS" is printed in uppercase letters rock out; CD booklets upon which the band-name is "boris" printed in lowercase letters are slow, light, or experimental).  Who knew which Boris would show up in Ohio?  The 2007 tour's name—"the Roaring Silence Review"—cheekily preserved the mystery. 

A Few Reviews From Ken Katkin

As always, it's a great pleasure when a concert review or other piece from Professor Katkin lands in my inbox.  I'm sure you can understand my joy at seeing not one, but three reviews sitting there for our enjoyment.  There's also word of more reviews to come which I can't wait to read! 

In honor of this, as well as past and hopefully many future occasions, I'm now unveiling "Katkin's Korner" here to act as a landing pad for any and everything the good professor wishes to expound upon.  So without further ado, check out his reviews for recent shows by Spectrum, Rafael Toral and Lee Ranaldo, as well as The National after the jump.

Haiku Review of Patti Smith's Twelve

I haven't had a chance to listen to Patti Smith's recent all-covers album Twelve yet but the good professor, Ken Katkin, penned the following haiku after listening to the album from beginning to end .  I must admit, I laughed out loud.

Twelve songs, twelve authors.

The Nirvana cover rules.

The rest, nevermind.